


Morgen früh, wenn Gott will

by WantsUnicorns



Series: Lullaby Verse [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Cryogenics, Gore, M/M, Trapped, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-07
Updated: 2012-03-07
Packaged: 2017-11-01 14:56:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WantsUnicorns/pseuds/WantsUnicorns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Albus wakes up in dark chamber, he doesn’t remember how he got there and what happened. It is for him and the rest of the people in that room to find out what happened and how to escape their inevitable seeming fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morgen früh, wenn Gott will

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, I'll write a spoilery summary for the notes section, because I know a lot of people do not like 2nd person POV. The rest of the fics in this series are written in a different POV, so no worries.  
>  
> 
> Thanks to Kiss, Kristy and Wendy for the beta and cheerleading
> 
> I know the POV isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I’ve wanted to experiment a little and I think it worked out in the end. I chose it deliberately, because I wanted to increase the feeling of helplessness and inactivity the character is suffering from. There is nothing he can do to influence his own destiny, because everything happening _to_ him is completely out of his control.  
>  The title “Morgen früh, wenn Gott will” is taken from a German lullaby and traditionally followed by the line “wirst du wieder geweckt”. Those two lines translate to: “Tomorrow morning, God willing, you shall awake/be woken again.”  
> This was originally posted to hp_zombiefest over at LJ

You wake up feeling disoriented. Someone’s shaking you by your shoulders and calling your name. You idly wonder about the clear sense of desperation you perceive in their voice. What could possibly have upset them so? It’s a bit cold, a bit dark, but you don’t feel uncomfortable. Your entire body feels relaxed, as if you are just about to fall asleep. Your eyes drift shut again and the shaking becomes more frantic. Part of you decides that the person who’s shouting at you must either hate or love you fiercely, because no other person would be that persistent in trying to disturb your rest.

You are finally able to make out words, instead of gibberish, and you are glad, because for a moment you were scared the other person might not be speaking English at all.

The hands on your shoulders slacken and a body slumps against you. Your body is starting to feel sore where it is awakened by the weight of another. Something feels off, but you can’t pinpoint it, as your thoughts are still sluggish. You feel a bit like whoever is running your brain at the moment is wading through a dark and smelly swamp. Bubbles of gas slowly rising to the surface popping here and there, with no landmarks as far as the eye can see. You should be worried. This isn’t normal; neither how little all of this bothers you, nor how you can’t feel your legs or how it took you this long to realise that the wetness on your chest comes from another person’s tears. Is it a man or woman, you wonder. Definitely a woman, you decide. You can make out her sobs, her desperate pleading, as she clings to your front.

“Al, please wake up; not you too. I can’t bear being the only one!”

The meaning of the words uttered in fear doesn’t register with you properly. After far too long you realise the that woman clinging to you – which in itself is odd as you are really not that into them – is in fact your sister, Lily. Something is very wrong here, and while you still don’t seem to care about yourself, her distress is definitely getting through to you. There’s something you should remember. Something just within your grasp, but every time you try to reach for it the memory slips from your hold like a cold fish.

Maybe you are in hospital. Did you have an accident? No, that idea doesn’t sit right with you; you decide it can’t be that. What then? Were you sick? Were you injured somehow? This doesn’t ring a bell either, and you are startled from your reverie when the shaking starts again. You try to blink your eyes rapidly, trying to get them to focus to no avail; all you can make out is a flickering brightness above you. For a second real terror strikes you as you realise that you could be going blind. You want to cry out in fear, but there’s something blocking your airway. You can feel panic rising to the surface and try to grab for whatever it is that is in your mouth, but you can’t feel your arms. Inside your head you are screaming. You are the only one who can hear it. You realise you are blind and paralysed, unable to help yourself or your baby sister.

But if you think about it, how is that possible? You clearly remember feeling your sister’s body against yours; shouldn’t you be unable to feel anything at all, if you are paralysed? Still you cannot move and there’s nothing you can do for your sister’s distress.

Something is blocking the flickering brightness above you and for a second you fear that your sight is going completely. Then the shape that is blocking out the light becomes the tear-streaked face of your sister. Her long red hair tickles your cheek and you feel relief flooding you. You are not blind, and as you see your hand coming up beside your face to reach for her you realise that you are not paralysed either.

Her voice still sounds muffled and a bit like she’s speaking from somewhere far away on a bad connection using one of those Muggle devices your godmother is so fond of. She’s clinging to you again but this time in relief. You still can’t seem to move much and you muse about how relief and desperation are both equally painful when unleashed on someone else in a bone-crushing hug.

You try to speak again, but there’s still something in your throat, you feel for it with your free hand, but your fingers encounter nothing but air. You were expecting some kind of tube, perhaps it’s a spell. Your entire body is sore and it takes every effort to touch Lily and signal her to look at you. You point at your mouth and look at her questioningly. You can see first confusion and then understanding pass across her features. She scrambles off you. You have no idea where she’s going or what she’s going to do. You just stare at the stone ceiling high above you with what you now can make out as flickering lights. A strange humming sound, like that of an angry hornet is coming from the bulbs behind their cover of frosted glass. You are happy to look at them; anything to help convince you that you haven’t gone blind. They look Muggle, but you are pretty sure they are not connected to electricity in any way, as you cannot see cables. Grandpa Arthur always had had a thing for Muggle technology and according to him there always were wires, even so-called wireless things needed wires at some point, he’d said. It’s so odd what one focuses on when one is trying desperately not to think about something else.

You can hear someone approaching with hurried steps. Maybe Lily went to fetch a doctor. Looking around you, slowly twisting your head this way and that as far as it can go, you decide you are not lying in a hospital bed, possibly a field bed of some kind. Since when have army field beds been made of stone? The memories inside you stir again as you think of war and you strain your mind, trying to hold on to them, but then Lily is back and the memories dissolve in the already slack grip of your subconscious, like a puff of smoke.

You don’t know what spell she uses, but the feeling of an object shoved down your throat disappears unexpectedly and you utter a hoarse croak as you try to thank her.

“What happened?” You manage to say loud enough for her to understand after the fifth attempt.

She slowly helps you to sit up and you realise that you are not lying in a bed at all, but in a coffin. No, not a coffin; a sarcophagus. The heavy lid twisted partway to the side just enough, to allow you to sit up. You are not prepared for how much this scares you and the only reason you even attempt to suppress how terrified you are is to protect your baby sister.

Lily begins to rub your hands and arms, trying to get life back into them, and while it hurts more than just a little you are still grateful because after your earlier scare you are glad to feel anything at all.

While Lily slowly helps you out of the sarcophagus that held you for who knows how long, she talks about how she woke up in the dark, feeling as if she was choking. The air had been filled with an intense wailing sound and it had taken a long time before she’d been able to move.

“They’re all here, Al!” Lily says to you, her voice still unbelieving and confused.

“Who’s here?”

“Everyone; Rose, Hugo, James, Teddy and Victoire. Even Scorpius bloody Malfoy is here. I tried to find Mum and Dad, but they aren’t here, and I haven’t been able to find a way out of this room yet so I don’t know whether they’re nearby.”

“What do you mean? Where are they?” you ask, looking around you and spotting more sarcophagi like yours. All the lids are pushed to the side, just like yours, and suddenly you realise that each and every one of them contains a body, paralysed and blind, just like you were till Lily came for you. 

The fear is back. You know you should be afraid, because something happened, something truly terrible and frightening, but you still can’t remember. And then of course there’s Scorpius; you didn’t think you’d ever see him again. You and him being former best friends and all that. What a day that had been, when you told your father that you had been sorted into Slytherin – he’d actually been happy about that, or so it seemed at the time – and that you had made a new friend; your best friend. When your father found out his name he’d looked as if he’d just eaten a particularly sour lemon, and it wasn’t until much later that you figured out why he disliked Scorpius so.

You never disliked Scorpius, hell, you don’t even really dislike him now. With you and Scorpius it’s complicated. Better not to dwell on that.

“Alright then!” you say, sounding more sure of yourself than you feel. From the look she gives you, you can tell that Lily knows you are faking for her sake. “Let’s have a look at them, shall we?”

You make as if to get up, but you are so weak that it’s Lily who’s holding you up with a steadying hand. If not for her you would have fallen right back into your deathbed.

It takes a long time till you’ve crossed the two metres between your sarcophagus and the next one. Your heart beats faster as you see the still pale face of Scorpius Malfoy. He has always been pale, but his entire face is now the colour of death. You try to deny it, but deep inside you feel your heart breaking at the sight in front of you. All you want to do is throw yourself on his lifeless body and take it all back; all the words that were said in anger, just for him to come back to you. It’s been months since you’ve seen each other and only now do you realise how much you missed him; now that you can never have him back. Lily is speaking to you, or more accurately at you, and you realise that she must have been talking for a while now.

“Sorry, say that again?” you say, glad to have something, anything, to focus on besides how lost you feel without him.

“I said they’re all breathing and I checked their pulses, but I can’t seem to wake them up. You’re the first one to respond in any way. I was so scared…” At that her voice breaks and you wrap your arms around her, making reassuring shushing noises.

“We need to get them out of those coffins,” you hear yourself say.

“You aren’t strong enough, Al,” your sister points out. You know that she’s right, but you can’t stand to see him like this. You know you should be more worried about your friends and your brother, but all you can think about, now that you have seen his face again, is your lover.

“Please, Lily, help me get them out of these things.” You sound desperate and you know it. If you don’t get a hold of yourself Lily will start to get suspicious. You’ve never told anyone about you and Scorpius. Why secrecy was so important at the time escapes you now.

“Alright, I’ll get them out of there, but you stay put. Got that? I don’t want you fainting!” Her voice is stern and you smile, because it’s the kind of thing Molly Weasley would have said. You flash her a quick grin and nod; she grins back.

“As your ladyship commands!” you reply and get biffed on the head for it. You both start to laugh and it’s freeing. You slowly lower yourself to the floor beside Scorpius’ sarcophagus and lean forward to allow Lily to cushion your back with some of the padding she has torn from yours. Taking a calming breath and brandishing her wand in a confident manner, Lily gets to work. You already know she’ll leave Scorpius till last. None of your siblings or friends like him, they never understood what you saw in him, but you sort of liked it that way. Despite having two siblings, you were never that good at sharing anyway.

You sneak your hand into Scorpius’ coffin and caress his cold cheek while Lily is busy hoisting limp bodies out of their resting places, rubbing their limbs and sitting them down; leaning them against the walls of the large chamber. Out of the corner of your eye you can see James, Hugo and Rose leaning beside each other, James and Hugo unmoving and Rose blinking her eyes repeatedly. Teddy and Victoire follow and you wonder how Lily could possibly carry them, but when she turns around just for a second, wand in hand, you realise she’s levitated everyone but you. You feel special and the thought warms your heart, making you smile. No matter how much you’ve teased her over the years, Lily is still special to you, and always will be.

Your hand traces Scorpius’ jaw and comes to rest on his throat. You can feel the reassuring flutter of his pulse against your fingers and before you know it, you’ve drifted off to sleep.

The room seems brighter when you wake up; the lights aren’t flickering anymore. You can hear hushed conversations in the background as well as the sound of someone sobbing uncontrollably. Your hand now rests on Scorpius’ chest and you feel anger surge through you as you realise that everyone but Scorpius has already been freed. Maybe it wasn’t for the best that everyone disliked him, after all.

The beating of his heart feels stronger and you feel unexpected confidence rise in you. Scorpius will be okay, you decide, and gently run your hand up and down his torso without noticing that you are doing it. Maybe you are just kidding yourself, but he feels warmer to your touch already.

The conversation at the other side of the room stops and you quickly snatch your hand away as if burned. It wouldn’t do for them to find out _now_ , would it? As you still can’t make up your mind, Teddy walks over to you, helping you up and making you sit on the sarcophagus’ edge. Teddy carefully lifts Scorpius’ limp body, his head lolling from side to side as his body is moved. Adhering to standard wizarding first aid guidelines Teddy prepares to cast an _enervate_ on Scorpius and your heart speeds up noticeably with anticipation as he brandishes his wand. Despite the strength of the spell Scorpius doesn’t even so much as shiver and your anticipation quickly turns into fear.

Just as you are about to scold Teddy for putting Scorpius down less than gently, Scorpius’ eyes fly open and he starts coughing and gagging. You rush to him, paying no heed to the questioning stares directed at you by your sister and cousin, and gently place your hands on his shoulders.

“Scorpius?” Your voice is barely above a whisper and you assume he hasn’t heard you. The coughing and gagging has stopped and his eyes are still open. You say his name again, a bit louder this time, but still get no reaction. His skin is slowly warming beneath your hands, but he’s not moving and his eyes are unseeing. He’s more like a broken doll than a human being.

“All the lights are on, but nobody’s home,” Teddy says beside you, his voice carefully neutral. He places his hand comfortingly on your shoulder as he continues. “James and Hugo are also catatonic; they breathe, their hearts beat and their eyes are open, but they don’t react to outside stimuli. We have no idea what’s wrong with them. Victoire displayed the same symptoms at first, but she’s perfectly fine now.”

You feel like you should know what’s wrong with them, what’s wrong with all of you, but you still can’t seem to remember. You must have dreamt when you were resting beside Scorpius, because you do remember something: the distraught face of your mother. You remember your dad reaching for someone – not your mum – and missing. Her face alone should jog your memory, and suddenly you remember running as if you were running for your life. Rose was there, and Lily and James, but none of the others that are in this room. In the memory your father is screaming at you to run faster and not to look back, as he fires hex after hex at whatever is following you. For the first time in your life you do as he says without question; you grab Lily’s hand and you run as if the devil himself is after you.

“Al, are you okay?” Teddy’s voice draws you back into the present. You nod, unsure whether it’s the truth.

Lily beckons you over to them and reluctantly you leave Scorpius behind after telling him that you’ll be right back and for him not to be afraid. What if he can hear and feel everything, you wonder. What if he is trapped in his own body unable to respond and going insane, just like you were before you recognised Lily?

You walk past seven sarcophagi identical to yours. The room is crescent shaped and while there are two doorways leading from it that suggest the entire complex is circular in shape, at least one of them has been blocked by rubble. You get closer to Rose and Lily who have piled books and what looks like notes onto a makeshift reading table. Most of the paper looks charred around the edges. A huge apparatus that reminds you of the kind of device Muggles use to measure your blood pressure rises out of the scattered remains of what can only be a half-molten cauldron. 

You carefully approach the doorway that’s still about halfway blocked by boulders. Leaning inside you can barely make out the charred and scattered witnesses of a potions explosion. You assume that the dark substance caking the walls, rubble and what’s left of the shelves and worktop is dried potion of some kind. The ever present smell of burnt wood hints that there’s also a fair amount of ash and soot in the mix. The thick layer of grime and dust on the floor has been disturbed recently and you assume that the others have searched through the remains to find out what happened.

Before you can approach the other room, already much more attractive because of its decided lack of grime and boulders and the charred blackness that doesn’t even remotely resemble a door, Rose and Lily tell you what they found in that antechamber. It contains a pensieve, letters and a phial for each of your number with your names on them. 

They’ve gone through the letters, which bear instructions on what to do with the phials. The notes they managed to recover from the destroyed potions lab seem to be more serious and difficult in nature and it takes all of Rose’s remarkable skills to make heads or tails of them.

Her voice is shaking but grows ever stronger as she starts to tell you what they’ve discovered.

“It seems that after Voldemort’s defeat and subsequent death there was an outbreak. A disease that all marked Death Eaters came down with several years after the end of the war. First it was just fatigue, but then it got worse and they all wasted away, whether they were in Azkaban or not; and people who got close to them started to show the same symptoms. It was as if the life was slowly drained out of them. My mother and several other wizarding potions masters and scientists tried to find a cure and discern whether it was caused by some slow-acting curse, but they never found out. The next step was to develop potions and spells that would stilt or at least slow down the progression of the infection, but they appear to have had trouble creating a serum the infection wouldn’t adapt to and as far as I can make out they never managed to get past creating a working prototype.

“When the first Death Eaters died, they didn’t stay dead. They returned and became violent. The first few were caught, but so many of them were on the run that they started a pandemic. Their blood and saliva was contagious, even getting scratched or bitten by them would turn their victims within days. Whoever got infected would start to waste away and be prone to irrational behaviour and violence. The infected would then succumb to a high fever and delusions, and after that fall into a coma. None of those infected ever awoke human. With no pulse or breath and driven by the need to make more of their kind, they’d attack those people who cared for them.”

She pauses again and you know the worst part is coming.

“Our parents fought day and night, but the infected didn’t need rest or sleep and our numbers dwindled. It doesn’t say so in the notes, but I believe they tried to protect us by putting us in here. I think they locked us in here and put us in some kind of cryo stasis, possibly with the help of the Sleeping Beauty Draught, and made their last stand after sealing this room, to keep us safe.”

Silence falls. None of you is sure of what to say, of how much truth there is in this. But then it was Rose who said it and she’s usually right.

“Why are there so few of us here?” you ask, realising just how very few of you there are. Where are the Notts and Longbottoms, the Parkinsons and Zabinis, you wonder.

Rose’s voice falters again and then continues void of emotion. “In old wizarding families it is customary to hold a wake for the deceased, with only their family and closest friends present. The people present at those events must have been the first to fall victim to the disease…” Her voice breaks and she begins to cry. Lily enfolds her in a consoling hug and you feel badly for Rose. You know she had been involved with the Parkinson boy, Scorpius told you so.

Nobody says a word and after a while you all decide to get some sleep. You are lying on the padding which you’ve torn from the sarcophagi as no one seems willing to climb back into them to sleep. None of you said it out loud but it’s as clear as day that you are all afraid the sarcophagi will close and imprison you while you are sleeping. After you make sure that everyone is comfortable, you wait until everyone else has fallen asleep, before you drag your makeshift mattress and cover over to Scorpius and curl up beside his still form.

~.o.O.0.O.o.~

At night you are assaulted by memories. You didn’t obey your father that day. The fact that he is Harry Potter has never had any pull with you or your siblings. The only thing you know about the war is what you know from your History of Magic class at Hogwarts and from what you can tell through having laughed about and compared with your father, Professor Binns is still as tedious and boring as he was when your dad attended Hogwarts.

You remember being ordered to wait in a dark chamber, not the one you are in now, but somewhere else, probably close by. Of course you snuck back out, the minute the others weren’t paying attention, to see what was going on. You saw your father with Draco Malfoy’s arm slung around his shoulder and he was half dragging, half carrying him towards you. They never made it that far. You could hear far-off noises but what you saw in front of you was even scarier. Mr. Malfoy was incredibly pale and he looked unwell to you, more dead than alive. As you remember this, a small thought rears itself at the back of your mind and you know that it can’t be good, as you take in the dark shadow on the inside of his left forearm.

“Draco, please! You have to be strong, I know you can fight this, I know you!” You’d never heard such desperation in your father’s voice and even now that you remember, it still scares you.

“Harry, you promised! You promised you wouldn’t let me become one of those things, you know I’d rather die…” He coughed and when he lowered his hand there were traces of blood on it, “…rather die than to be a danger to you or to my child.”

“I-I can’t!”

“You h-have to… there’s not much time.”

“Draco… I… I’m so very sorry about everything…”

“I know. Me too. I wish…” You can hear his voice drifting off as he grows weaker, he’s gazing into your father’s eyes and suddenly you know. There’s something more, some undercurrent that you never noticed before. Such desperation and sorrow can only be born out of love. Becoming aware of this, you begin to wonder where Scorpius is. The scuffling sounds are coming closer and you can also make out mindless moaning and wheezing. Your father and Mr. Malfoy quickly turn their heads towards the sound in unison, listening intently and then back to each other. Your father tries to hold Mr. Malfoy close, but he’s resisting, albeit weakly.

“No, Harry, go. Do what you promised and then go!” There’s a severity driven by desperation in Mr. Malfoy’s voice that you’ve never heard before and apparently neither has your father, because he looks shocked.

“I’m sorry Draco, I can’t!” And with that your father leans forward and presses a kiss first to Mr. Malfoy’s temple, and then his lips.

Mr. Malfoy is crying now. His knuckles are white as he clings to the lapels of your dad’s torn and tattered Auror robes. “No, Harry! Why’d you do that?!” Your father presses his forehead against Mr. Malfoy’s, cupping his face in both of his hands and caressing his cheeks gently.

“Because, I can’t be without you, I won’t! Not after what happened to Gin. I’ll make sure the children are safe and then I’ll come back here. I can’t do it otherwise. I can’t keep my promise if I have to stay behind by myself.” Silent tears still slowly roll down Mr. Malfoy’s cheeks; he just nods and then kisses your dad desperately.

“Come on, then,” your dad says after getting up and hoisting Mr. Malfoy up with him. You can hear him cast a weight-reducing charm on Mr. Malfoy and then move toward your hiding place.

The last thing you remember before the memory fades and you wake up, is the shocked looked on your father’s face as he sees you.

~.o.O.0.O.o.~

On your second day in the chamber you find that while you mind the lack of daylight you are already making yourself at home. Your sleeping arrangement doesn’t draw even so much as a single comment from the others and you are grateful for their silent acceptance.

It’s as if you’ve all moved on from that confused desperation you experienced upon waking up and are now already moving towards making the best of a situation utterly devoid of hope. None of you have experienced hunger or thirst and while that’s odd, it’s still one of the things keeping panic at bay.

The fatigue you felt when waking up is still there. You feel a bit like no matter how much you sleep and rest it only gets worse and that worries you. Something is off about this entire situation and the room you are all trapped in. Rose probably knows what’s going on, but before you can ask her, she calls your name and you walk over to her improvised lab table. You know that she’s been trying to get some contraption to work that your aunt left behind, but she doesn’t appear to have made much headway. Victoire has been trying to assist her with even less success, which you are easily able to discern from Rose’s exasperated expression as Victoire grabs for something on the table again.

“What’s going on?” you ask, unsure of whether you want to get into the middle of what might very well turn into a fight sooner rather than later.

“I’ve been trying to figure out how my mother tested everyone’s magical aura for infection. I’ve used samples both from myself and Victoire and while my sample seems to work fine for me and hers for her, whenever I test her, I get ambiguous results.”

“What do you need me to do?” you ask, smiling despite the fact that you already know she’s going to ask you to let her test your aura.

“Just walk over here and see if this thing works for you,” she says, pointing at the thing on the table.

You do as she asks and put your arm into something that looks suspiciously like a thickly padded shackle. The material feels strange against your bare skin and you wonder what’s going to happen next. You can feel something feeling for and then connecting with, that steady current of energy/power running through every fibre of your being. You’ve never been aware of just how much magic is a part of who you are and the feeling of this part of yourself being analysed that closely is decidedly odd.

“Are you okay?”

“I think so. It feels really strange. What is it doing?”

“As far as I can tell from my mother’s instructions – and they are hard to understand at times mind you – it’s absorbing a tiny part of your magic and filtering it. If it detects any trace of the curse, it’ll take a larger sample and analyse it further to make sure and if there’s no trace at all, you are done after the first test. I’m just trying to figure out how it works to be honest. Mum must have been in a hurry when she threw the notes together for us; there are many bits and pieces of research and information missing and I’m going more by trial and error at this point than anything else,” she says matter-of-factly, making you smile. Rose was never one to appreciate shoddy workmanship. It feels good to discover that some things haven’t changed, despite the bizarre situation you find yourself in.

You lean over and look at the several sheets of paper scattered all over the small table in front of you, surrounding the device that’s still examining your magic like a very messy black and white carpet.

“How long is this going to take?” you ask, but before you can concentrate on the answer something among the notes catches your eye. You reach for it with your free hand and skim the page which appears to have been torn from a notebook. All you can make out is something about the room you’ve woken up in, something about sustaining it and constant energy being needed to keep the artificial space from collapsing. If anything it sounds incredibly ominous to you and if you didn’t know better you’d swear the walls had come closer since you woke up.

“Never mind. Rose, what’s this?” You hand the page over to her.

She seems surprised when what it says on the page starts to sink in. But before she can explain it to you, Victoire grabs the page and studies it with not a little anticipation.

“Does that mean the room is getting smaller because it was artificially created?” Victoire asks after looking up from the page.

“I honestly don’t know, Victoire,” Rose replies. “Al, were there any more pages?”

You shake your head, indicating where you found it on the table and start shuffling paper around. Rose moves over and helps you, shortly after followed by Victoire and the three of you quickly compile a small amount of torn notebook pages. You are glad for the help, because you are still hindered by the device that’s now holding your wrist in a vice-like grip. Rose has already started sorting the pages to make sure they are in the right order, when the testing device finally makes a noise like the microwave your uncle Ron is so fond of before releasing your arm. A small friendly blue globe hovers over the device, you have no idea what it means and open your mouth to ask Rose. She flashes you a quick grin before wordlessly handing you the torn manual that’s so covered in your aunts notes and apparently been used to many times that you can barely make out the words. Apparently blue means that you have nothing to worry about. Curious of what colours other results would show, you read on, red of course means someone is infected and your aunt has made a note of the fact that the device would trap whoever got that result by not releasing their arm upon the test’s conclusion. The thought of being faced with that kind of news and being tied to the bolted down lab table in front of you makes your skin crawl, as if one of those things wasn’t bad enough in itself. You realise that war changes people, even the people one loves and considers to be above cruelty like this. It ceases to matter what someone is subjected to when everything has become a question of survival. You hope you’ll never have to make the kind of choices your parents had to.

The next page you turn over is strangely free of notes and any kind of handwriting. The manual states that if the test results in a yellow globe that further samples and testing are required and to turn to the next page and follow those instructions closely. You are troubled as you turn to the next page and find it missing as are the following ten pages before the manual describes maintenance and storage of the device. You look up, trying to catch Rose’s gaze.

“Rose, have you by any chance found the missing pages from the manual?”

“No, sorry. I’ve been trying to make sense of everything we found and the manual really wasn’t my top priority.”

“What results did you get?”

To your surprise it’s Victoire that answers, not Rose.

“We both got the same result as you, Al.” There’s a faint note of accusation in her voice as she speaks and glances quickly at Rose. “At least when we tested ourselves,” she adds and the mere note becomes more pronounced.

“I didn’t do anything wrong, Victoire. It’s not my fault the globe turned yellow when I first tested you,” Rose replies, sounding annoyed.

You aren’t quite sure how to react to this and instead of getting involved you ask Victoire to join you in trying to recover more of the destroyed potions' lab. She agrees and you help her climb over the rubble that’s still blocking half of the doorway and that you are too afraid to remove because you can’t be sure the explosion didn’t harm the structural integrity of the room.

Every piece of paper you find that’s even remotely readable gets passed over to where Rose is trying to make sense of it all and even though you hardly manage to spare more than a passing glance you notice how the number seven appears to be one of its major subjects. Time passes swiftly and before you know it, both Victoire and yourself are covered in soot from head to toe and too tired to carry on.

When Rose sees you both climb back into the main room she starts laughing and can hardly stop herself. Her laughter is contagious and soon the three of you are laughing so hard your bellies hurt and you have trouble standing up straight. When she’s finally able to get enough breath into her lungs she attempts to speak.

“Merlin, Al! You look ridiculous! What did you do?” And she’s off again, laughing like a maniac and pointing at your face. 

Frowning you conjure a mirror and look at your own reflection. It was dark in the lab and while you assumed you looked sort of like Victoire, you don’t really. You must have unconsciously passed your soot-covered hands over your brow many more times than she did, because you look – as Rose pointed out correctly – utterly ridiculous. There’s dark smears of soot all over your face and hair, which must have come in contact with some of the grime on the walls because it’s sticking up in a less than flattering way as well. In other words, you look a complete fright.

Spotting the look of anguish and shock on your face at your own appearance sends Rose into another fit of giggles and you decide to have your revenge by grabbing her and holding her close, rubbing plenty of soot on her.

“Oh, dearest cousin, how I’ve missed you!” you say and plant several kisses all over her cheeks, making sure to get as much soot and grime on her as possible. She shrieks first with outrage and then with laughter as you hold your conjured mirror up to her face and she takes in her reflection.

You are both laughing so hard that even trying to hold on to each other isn’t helping and you sink to the floor shaking and giggling.

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake!” someone says, sounding less entertained and more annoyed than you think the situation calls for and not soon after you feel the unpleasant sensation of a _scourgify_ cast on you and Rose.

“Instead of behaving like children you should work on getting us out of here, Rose! Especially since you won’t let anyone else handle the equipment. And do something about these weird lights will you?” Victoire says sounding annoyed and pointing at the ceiling lights that have just begun flickering a moment ago.

You gently but firmly place your hand on Rose’s forearm to stop her from replying.

“There’s no reason to speak to us like that, Victoire. You know very well that Rose is the most likely to find a solution. She’s got enough pressure on her as it is.” From her manner you can tell that Victoire is about to reply and slightly raising your voice you continue. “I’m not done! Behaving in such an antagonistic manner is not helping at all. I understand that this is hard for everyone, but we have to stick together and make do with what we have. It won’t do to lose your temper, we’re all in this together and we will find a way out of here. I think it’s best if we all just take a step back, maybe get some rest and then try again tomorrow.”

Victoire turns away without a word. The hunched shoulders and how she curls up to sleep, facing the wall tell you more than she could ever have expressed with words. After a while you hear quiet sobs and while you know that you and Rose are the last people she wants to talk to right now, you don’t want her to be alone and you beckon Lily over, explaining the situation and asking her to look after Victoire.

“Thanks, Al.” Rose says. “I think I’m actually going to take a leaf out of your book and get some rest myself.” She gets up, grabs some of the notes and gets comfortable on her own makeshift bedding.

You get up as well, casting one last look over at where Lily is stroking Victoire’s arm and back soothingly before heading back to Scorpius’ side. He still hasn’t moved or woken up. You rub his arms and legs to help his circulation and when you lay down beside him, caressing his arms and face, you can’t hear Victoire’s sobs anymore. The only thing you can make out is the ever present beat of Scorpius’ heart that stays with you, even as you fall asleep.

~.o.O.0.O.o.~

By now the shaking sensation on your shoulders is familiar as you slowly wake on what must be your third day in the chamber. You grumble because you are so very comfortable snuggled up against a warm body. Reluctantly you open your eyes. Gazing blearily around you catch sight of a blond head resting beside yours and you smile.

“Al, wake up! I need to talk to you!” It’s your cousin’s quiet voice this time that’s dragging you back to reality and you remember what it was like waking up the first time.

If possible the light in the room has grown even brighter. That doesn’t sit right with you. What’s causing it, you wonder, but get distracted when Rose pokes you in the chest with a pointed finger.

“Hey, this is important!”

“What’s going on? Why are we whispering?”

“It’s about Hugo, James and Scorpius. I went through my mother’s notes again and I think they might have had a bad reaction to the stasis charm. She anticipated something like this and wrote down some ideas on how to deal with it. I have to read up on it more, but while I do that, you should really watch the memory that was left behind for you.”

You would have rolled your eyes at her, for trying to be the sensible one, if the situation hadn’t been as serious.

“What’s wrong with them exactly?”

“I don’t know yet. It seems like the reviving process was supposed to trigger memories and revive the brain, but there appears to have been some malfunction with their pods, as well as ours. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but none of us can quite remember how we ended up here. All we know about it is what I read in Mum’s notes.”

You just keep looking at her, waiting for her to continue, suspecting and fearing at the same time that there is worse yet to come.

“There’s something else I am worried about, though. I haven’t told the others.” She pauses and her voice is barely audible now, you have to lean in closer to catch the rest of what she’s saying.

“I think there might have been contaminated air in the vents that fed oxygen into the pods. We still don’t know how those first family members got infected; whether it was by proximity alone, whether it was an airborne agent that was spread by those already infected, or whether it was some toxin targeting specific DNA groups…” Her voice breaks. You reach out and touch her arm, trying to reassure her and yourself. You can hear the worry in her voice and you know that she’s just barely forcing those words through a throat that feels much too tight, both from terror and sadness, exactly like your own.

“…I…I’m afraid that if it was an airborne agent, that they might have been infected while they slept.” She clings to you now and you cling back just as hard. The thought of your brother, your cousin and your lover contaminated by that plague, almost kills you. Contaminated by what you now remember clearly took so many people you loved from you.

“We cannot be sure what the effects of long-term exposure to the pathogen might be. They could very well look something like this. It’s probably only a matter of time before they turn on us and there’s no way out of here…” You hear the panic in her voice and realise how fragile the façade of control she’s trying to keep up for all of your sakes is. If even one of you panics, it’ll all be over, you know that much. You push her away gently and hold her at arm’s length by her shoulders.

“Rose, listen to me. If anyone can figure this out, it’s you! Alright? I know you can do it!” You see her eyes clear and you are surprised by how much any human being is able to bear. 

Deep inside you hope that her worries will not be fulfilled. Then another thought fights for your awareness. James and Hugo were cold; they feel and look like they are still in their stasis pods, but Scorpius is warm, he coughed and blinked, what if... No, you can’t even make yourself consider the possibility. There must be some mistake. Something makes you ask Rose anyway.

“Have you checked on Scorpius?” You hope that Rose misses the note of fear in your voice.

“Not yet. I didn’t want to disturb your rest and after what Lily told me, that seemed more important. Why do you ask?”

“No reason.”

This time it’s her that gives you that whom-do-you-think-you-are-kidding look; it reminds you so very much of your godmother that you decide to come clean.

“He’s different to the others; he’s warmer for one, and he looked almost awake when Teddy pulled him from his… pod, you called it?”

She walks over to Scorpius without a word to feel his skin and pulse and you want to stop her in case he really is a danger to more than your heart.

“Very interesting,” she says and takes a step back, her brows furrowed in thought. “I think I saw something about this in mum’s notes, I’ll just be…” You watch her walking over to where she’d been reading earlier without another word and still don’t know whether you should be worried or relieved. With words like interesting and people like Rose, you can never tell whether “interesting” is a good thing.

You don’t know how much time has passed, but it can’t have been a lot, when Rose walks back to you and asks you to help carry Scorpius over to the device she used on you earlier. Apparently she’s made some headway in using the manual to find out how to operate it properly and she takes several samples for, as she calls it, “in depth analysis”. You carefully carry Scorpius back to his makeshift bed. You fear that your magic might give out on you and hesitate to levitate him for fear of dropping him.

Even carrying him the small distance from the table back to his bedding by yourself has taken it out of you and you welcome the softness of your pod’s padding as you sink down on it beside him thinking you will just close your eyes for a second to catch your breath, but almost immediately falling into a deep sleep, plagued by nightmares.

When you wake the next time in cold sweat, the fatigue is worse than ever. It takes two tries until you even manage to sit up straight, leaning against the cold stone wall of the chamber, blinking your eyes repeatedly and silently praying for the room to stop spinning already. You draw your wand to cast a quick tempus, but like every other time the result is frustrating, because it’s just a series of numbers from one to twelve quickly merging into each other as if time was passing too swiftly for the spell to pick up.

Scorpius’ still form feels like a furnace where it touches you and you are worried enough to seek out Rose where she sits leaning against the wall, papers surrounding her and covering her lap. She’s staring into the distance, her eyes unfocused, deeply lost in thought. The only sound you hear coming from her is the sound of paper scratching against paper when she shifts slightly to adjust her weight or tries to find a more comfortable position.

It took you longer than anticipated to cross the short distance and sink down on the mattress beside her, trying not to sit on anything that’s looking important. Rose finally looks up at you, but before you can speak she’s already talking to you.

“Just give me a minute, Al. I think I've almost got it figured out.”

As you sit beside her, waiting for her to reach her conclusions, you idly observe the others. Teddy has taken Lily’s place beside Victoire and the two of them are speaking softly to each other. Too softly for you to be able to make out what they are talking about, but you can imagine; it’s what you are all thinking about. Something’s wrong. You all look incredibly tired and the times you spend sleeping grow longer and longer compared to the time you spend awake.

Lily is rubbing James’ and Hugo’s arms and legs to ease circulation. Everyone seems to have found something to do to pass the time. As always, your gaze returns to Scorpius. You’ve made sure he doesn’t lie on his back or his sides too long; Hermione has once told you that that’s what you do in hospitals to make sure patients don’t get bruises from lying in one position too long. You hope Rose has time for you soon, because you feel it’s time again to turn him over.

Rose touches your shoulder to get your attention and you are forced to stop your musing and return to reality.

“You're really worried about him, aren’t you?” Her voice is full of compassion and you fear the worst.

“Yes. I-I don’t even know why we kept it a secret for so long.” You take a shuddering breath, trying to hold back tears but forge on ahead anyway. “It was me, you see? I didn’t want anyone to know. I was afraid of what people would say, Mum and Dad and everyone else. I thought we wouldn’t be able to withstand all the attention. Turns out I was wrong… All the sneaking around became too much for Scorpius. He said either we’d go public or he’d leave me. I never thought he’d go through with it. But he did. He was probably just as surprised as I was when he did. Oh God, Rose, I’m so scared that I won’t ever get to hear him speak to me again. The last time I spoke to him I said so many things I wish I hadn’t said and now I’ll never get to tell him that I’m sorry. What am I going to do?” You bury your head in your hands as sorrow finally overtakes you.

“Hush, darling. It’ll be alright. You’ll see,” Rose says soothingly while caressing your arms and back.

You throw yourself into her arms unable to hold back. She holds you close, her arms tight and reassuring around you as you can’t hold back the sobs that shake your entire body. It feels like it takes forever for them to subside and for your breathing to calm. Rose’s shoulder is wet where her clothes soaked up your tears and when you’ve calmed down enough to her constant, reassuring words, you feel slightly embarrassed for having lost control in that way.

You disentangle yourself slowly, but allow Rose to keep you at arm’s length. Your cheeks with the salt of tears and your eyes look red and puffy. Everyone will know that you’ve been crying. Rose appears to have read your thoughts, because she asks if you know a spell to fix yourself up. You shake your head. She casts a spell you’ve never heard before, but your cheeks feel clean and cool afterwards and your eyes have lost their puffiness.

“I never thought having hay fever would ever come in handy. Of course it had to be Albus Severus Potter who would make me realise that.”

“Thank you,” you reply, smiling despite yourself.

“You know, in another life we’d‘ve made the perfect couple, Al. Providing we weren’t both into men.” She winks at you then and hugs you once more impulsively.

“Now, I think the reason you came over has less to do with the research you recovered from the lab and more with the fact that I took some samples for testing?”

You nod carefully trying to hide your growing sense of anticipation. Rose sees through your attempt and flashes you a quick grin that eases your worries somewhat before continuing.

“The results aren’t entirely clear. I think it has something to do with the draught used in putting him to sleep. The properties appear to be slightly different to the one we all consumed. My mother created several different versions before she settled on one. While Scorpius’ symptoms are disturbing in conjunction with the draught that was officially used, they make sense if he took one of the experimental ones. He should be awake, actually. His body is fully functioning, it’s producing warmth on its own and he coughed and blinked when you got him out of his pod. Hugo and James didn’t do any such thing. I’m still not entirely sure what we can do to get him out of the state he’s in, but I’ve got some ideas. I’m glad you came over though, because there’s something else I wanted to ask you.”

“It’s about the room isn’t it?” you ask, obviously surprising her.

“Yes, how did you…?”

“The notes all around you, they are the ones concerning this place and some of them are the ones we pulled from the lab yesterday.”

“The thing is… no… let me ask you first to make sure your answer is completely unaffected. Did you notice anything odd about this chamber?” She asks looking at you expectantly.

“I’ve noticed the lights have been getting brighter the more of us are awake at any one time. Also, something feels off about it. We all sleep a lot more than we should and when I wake it’s as if I hadn’t slept at all. I thought that the fatigue might have been a side effect of being in the pods for so long but then you probably would have mentioned it already. So, what’s really going on then?”

Rose takes a deep breath and begins summing up what she’s found out.

“So, you see, the chamber was originally designed for seven pods, but we are eight people in eight pods in here. I think there are several reasons for why we are so tired all the time. The draught we took was supposed to keep us asleep for one hundred years, but considering the room had to keep more people in stasis than it was designed to, I doubt that as many years have passed. If I had to guess I would say we spent about eighty-six years in here. The other reason is that with one more pod the drain on the magic used to create this room was much stronger than anticipated and I’m already impressed that it has lasted us this long and that the room hasn’t collapsed or dissolved. Now this is where it gets interesting. The room is absorbing magic to keep itself stable.”

“But you said the magic was gone. How can it be absorbing magic?”

“Think about it, Al. Our spells don’t work properly in here; we tried apparating out of this room and nothing happened. The lights, as you said, have grown brighter the more of us are awake.”

“So you think…”

“Yes, I believe the room is siphoning off some of our magical energy to keep itself stable. That’s why we are so tired, because our magic is connected to our life force. Now, the reason it’s doing that is to keep the occupants of the pods alive, but in the process it’s slowly draining us. Once we have no magic left, it’ll collapse entirely.”

“What do you mean once we have no magic left? Are you saying that we’ll die if we don’t get out of here?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’ve gone through all the research we’ve managed to recover and I think I might’ve found a way to disrupt or at least slow down the flow of magic. But we have to learn as much as we can from the pensieve in the next room and what’s left to salvage in the lab to be sure.”

You stare at her, trying to absorb what she’s just told you. The room that’s supposed to keep you safe – that looks as solid as the reassuring walls of dungeons at Hogwarts – will collapse if it stops draining your life energy.

“This is insane, Rose!” you eventually say.

“It sounds a bit like that, doesn’t it?” she replies. “I tried disconnecting myself as an experiment, but it didn’t work. I believe we all have to be disconnected at once, but I’m working on that. Do you remember the spell they taught us for making someone’s magical aura visible?”

You nod in reply.

“Cast it on me right now and tell me what you see.”

You obey and cast the spell. Slowly Rose’s aura becomes visible and you smile as you notice its colour is perfect for her name.

“Can you see it yet?”

You shake your head, but then you begin to see it, just above her heart her aura is pulsating gently and it’s as if part of it is flowing outward and dissipating into the air. If her aura was blood, her heart would be steadily pumping it out into the atmosphere. You can’t believe she was right again. You should have known better than to doubt her and still you can hardly believe your eyes. You cancel the spell unable to meet her gaze. She reaches out to you and takes hold of your hand, giving it a quick reassuring squeeze before letting go again.

“I assume this means you’ve seen it. It’s a disturbing sight, isn’t it?” she asks. You nod mutely. You’ve done a lot of that lately and force yourself to reply properly this time.

“I saw it, but I still can’t quite believe what it means. Are you sure you can fix it?”

“Sure enough. Let me worry about the details, Al. I think you should really look at the memory that was left for you. You are the only one who’s able to, who hasn’t seen theirs yet.”

“Alright. Can I sit with you for a while longer, please?”

She smiles. “You can sit with me for as long as you’d like, Al.”

~.o.O.0.O.o.~

You eventually decide to get up and walk into the antechamber. You’ve constantly been by Scorpius’ side and you already know that if he really is infected, so are you. You’ve been breathing the same air while you were asleep. You’ve touched his skin and face and in a moment of weakness you caressed the cherubim-shape of his lips with your thumb, wishing it was your lips caressing his and your mouth was breathing life back into him.

The antechamber is small and the collection of phials even smaller. Some have been uncorked and closed again; you can tell because the dust covering them has been disturbed. You see that Lily’s, Rose’s and Teddy’s phials have been opened. You recognise your own name in your father’s adult, but still scrawly hand on a piece of parchment and reach for the phial reluctantly. You know that your parents are probably both dead; you remember your father infecting himself on purpose, because he couldn’t bear to be left behind without the people he loved. That alone scares you enough to not allow yourself to dwell on what must have happened to your mother and the rest of your family.

As you hold the small phial in your hand, imagining your father holding it before placing it on the table beside the pensieve, you realise that you didn’t really know your father all that well. You know that he loved you and that he sacrificed himself to save his children, but you don’t know why he did what he did. You understand to some extent, but wilfully infecting himself to become less than human is something you cannot begin to fathom. Maybe he was just tired of always being expected to play the hero or maybe, like he said, he couldn’t bear to be without the ones he loved. You will never know. You try to imagine what it would take for you to give up like he did. Scorpius’ inanimate face in the cryo-pod, as you first saw it after waking up, immediately springs to mind. Were you ready to give in then? What if none of the others had survived, if not even Lily had been there to wake you up, would you have despaired then? Trying to find answers to those questions seems futile and you return your attention to the small innocent looking phial.

Carefully uncorking the small glass container, you tenderly pour the silvery strand of memory into the pensieve. It is as if this small thing, that is all that’s left of your father, is still connected to him somehow and you want to spare him pain and suffering. You take a deep breath before you plunge head first into the memory.

~.o.O.0.O.o.~

You don’t know how much time has passed when you emerge from the antechamber. It’s hard enough to notice the passing of time without access to natural light as it is, but being deeply immersed in someone else’s memories plays tricks with your mind on top of that. Despite what you learned through the pensieve, you feel that something is even more off about the room than it was before. You are still exhausted, but you can’t tell anymore whether it’s the emotional turmoil, the lack of undisturbed sleep or what the room is doing to you. You lean against the doorframe and take in your surroundings. It seems unreal after everything you’ve just experienced.

You could have sworn the room was bigger when you entered the chamber earlier and as you start counting them you can only find seven instead of the eight that should be there. But that can’t possibly be right, you decide. You must have made some mistake. Maybe you should ask Rose about it later. She’ll know what happened in the past to cause this and why.

Your thoughts of the past bring back vivid flashes of what you’ve just seen. Your hands are shaking so hard you have trouble hiding the fact. What memories did the others look at, you wonder. Are you weak because the one designated for you got to you as much as it did? You still can’t shake the look of terror on the young blond boy’s face as he lay on the floor of a flooded bathroom, or how sad he looked when your father refused to shake his hand in their first year. You cling to the hope that you’ll never have the same regrets as your father did. Be true to yourself, he’d said, before the last memory of him reciting a letter in front of a mirror had faded. Put family first, put your heart first, he’d said. Don’t ever care about what “other people” say or expect of you, he’d said, and it had made you smile, because you could actually hear the quotation marks as he spoke.

You are so wrapped up in your thoughts and how much you miss your mum and dad, Hogwarts and even stupid, boring Professor Binns that you nearly collide with Rose as she and Teddy half drag and half levitate Hugo towards the arch leading into the antechamber.

“What’s going on?” you ask, not really caring. All you want to do is go back to Scorpius; to make up for lost time, to look at his face, touch his warm skin and allow real hope back into your life.

“I think I’ve figured it out.” Rose says excitedly and you perk up at last; this sounds more promising than anything you’ve heard so far. And Merlin knows you could do with some cheering up, after what you’ve just seen.

“Mum’s notes indicate that we might be able to trigger total recall through application of memories if we use the pensieve water as a catalyst. One of us will have to hold them. If we can make them absorb the memory through the pensieve, it should trigger a chain-reaction. If that works, they should be just like they were before they were put under the SBD.”

“That’s a lot of ifs, Rose,” Teddy says, voicing your own thoughts and you nod.

“We have to try something, Teddy. We can’t just leave them like this. What if they’re awake in there, aware of everything happening around them but can’t respond? We already know that we either have to wake them up or put them back into the pods, or they’ll suffer severe brain damage and that’s something I’m not willing to risk. Now help me to get Hugo to the pensieve, please!”

Since Rose seems to have made up her mind, you sneak back to Scorpius. You take his warm but limp hand into your own and stroke the back of it with your thumb. You quietly tell him all that you’ve managed to find out thus far. When you’ve finished your tale, you go back to observing the room and the people contained inside, you are sure now that one of the sarcophagi is missing and that it was the one closest to the room with the pensieve. The walls look as if nothing has changed, not as if several metres just disappeared without anyone noticing, crowding you and them in even further. You have to tell Rose about it, but she hasn’t yet returned from the pensieve chamber. You stare at the darkened doorway, trying to make her come back out by your sheer force of will alone. You are not kidding yourself into thinking it’s working, but it helps pass the time while you stare toward the room. 

You’ve dragged Scorpius into your lap, his back is leaning against your chest and you hold him close while you wait, absently stroking his hair and arms.

It’s not long before – to your complete and utter surprise – a blinking and confused looking Hugo is helped out of the antechamber by Rose and Teddy. James will be next and you know that you’ll be expected to help Lily. You lean forward and place a gentle kiss on Scorpius’ temple, hoping for some kind of reaction. When it doesn’t come, you walk over to where Lily and Teddy are standing over James.

You never thought your brother would be this heavy, he looks skinny enough, but dragging and carrying him into the room with the pensieve gives a completely new meaning to the expression “dead weight”. 

As strong as you’ve been trying to be – and that hasn’t been very strong – if you are completely honest with yourself, you hope that Lily will stay with James. You are too preoccupied with the “what-ifs”, too preoccupied with what your father told you, to be able to take care of your brother. All you can think about is Scorpius.

You must have stopped, because now there’s a gentle hand on your arm. It’s Lily’s. She’s always been too perceptive for her own good and finally you are able to stop pretending. You are not alright by a long shot. You don’t know how everyone else keeps doing it, but all you want to do is scream and tear down the walls around you, both inside your head and in this room. You feel the oppressive weight of what must be hundreds of tons of solid rock on every side of you weighing down on you and you begin to shake. You have to get out of here right now, but there is nowhere to run to, nowhere to escape to. The last thing you see before your legs buckle under you is your sister’s worried face, framed by a circle of artificial light.

~.o.O.0.O.o.~

You wake up to the feeling of a cool hand held against your forehead, attempting to feel your temperature, and another pressing a forefinger and middle finger against your throat to feel your pulse. You don’t know what’s going on, and still your first thought is about Scorpius. You struggle to sit up to look for him, to make sure he’s okay, but are pushed back down again, gently but firmly.

Still you resist and are held down less gently. Your throat hurts, you feel much too warm and there’s something wrong with your eyes, you realise, as you have trouble getting them to focus on anything. 

“Shhhh! Al, stop struggling. You can’t get up yet.” Rose is talking to you, trying to calm you down, but you already know that it’s not working. Again you try to get out from under her and manage to at least dislodge her enough to sit up. Your head swings from left to right aimlessly as you try to find him. There’s a flash of white blond not too far off and you’ve disentangled yourself and headed for it faster than Rose can chase you down. You slump on the floor beside his blurry outline unsure of what to do now. You’ve found him, that’s all that matters.

Rose finally catches up with you and from the way she hovers over you, you can tell that she’s hesitating to touch you again.

“Al?” Her voice sounds unsure and scared even to you, but you are too busy trying to figure out what it is that made you rush over to Scorpius in the first place to pay much attention to anything outside of your small cosmos.

“What’s wrong with my eyes?” you ask suddenly and without prompting.

“There’s something wrong with your eyes?” She sounds concerned. And she does touch you when her sense of curiosity overcomes her apprehension. Tilting your head this way and that she examines your eyes, lifting the lids carefully, one after the other. All this you can tell more from touch and blurry outlines than from actually being able to make it out.

“Everything’s blurry. You don’t think…?” You stop, too scared to finish that sentence.

Rose hesitates to reply and this terrifies you even more. “I’m sorry, Al… I really don’t know. It could be a side effect of staying in that cryo-pod for as long as you did. Lily is still in the memory room with James. I should check on her, see if she’s got similar symptoms. Stay here, please.”

You watch her blurry shape rush off and feel your way toward Scorpius’ still form. Is it getting darker or is your eyesight actually fading? The question doesn’t bother you all that much anymore. You feel detached from it all; the only thing anchoring you to reality is where your hand finally finds Scorpius’ arm. 

You feel your way upwards to his chest, which is rising softly beneath your palm, and as you move to cover his heart with your hand, you can feel its steady beat. Each contraction of that small muscle reminds you of what it’s supposed to feel like to be alive. You remember lying in a tangle of limbs, utterly sated and your ear pressed to his skin, just left of his sternum, listening to his heartbeat. That constant rhythm seemed to set the pace of your private universe; it does so again in this very moment, more calming to you than anything else has ever been.

If you were particles at each end of the universe, the sound of that heartbeat would span the vastness between you. For the first time in what feels like months, but what you know to be years, you feel like you belong.

~.o.O.0.O.o.~

You can’t tell whether your eyesight has improved or got worse, because Rose has ordered you to lie down and put a cold wet cloth over your eyes that she keeps replacing whenever it gets too warm. You can still make out shapes through the thin fabric, which should keep you from walking into walls, pods and people, if you were allowed to get up that is; all you get to do is turn your head whenever Rose isn’t looking. James and Lily have emerged from the antechamber even before Rose returned with a fresh wet cloth. They came over to where you sat and hugged you. You hugged them back using only one arm, unable and unwilling to separate your hand from Scorpius’ chest.

They both gave you a knowing smile, or so you think. You can’t be sure. James squeezed your shoulder and then both of them let you be. You are grateful to them. James is the only one among your friends and family that knows about you and Scorpius in any detail. He’d walked in on the two of you kissing one day, when he’d barged into your room without knocking. Now that you think of it, he probably was just as shocked by the fact that Scorpius’ hands were in your pants and yours on his arse. You smile fondly at the memory; it was mortifying at the time but now that memory is one of the few things that still hint at what reality and normality used to be like, before you woke here. 

James returns after a while and sits with you. The two of you don’t talk. You never really have and why break with tradition now? You know it’s him despite the piece of cloth in front of your eyes, because you saw him walking over toward you. There’s just a decisively “Potter” way about how you all move and you’d have been able to spot him half a street away if you’d been outside.

“This is really odd,” James eventually says, shattering the illusion of normalcy.

It takes a while before you reply, reacting to the silent anticipation you can feel coming off of James in waves. When you do, it’s with the same air of casual negligence you could hear in James’ voice.

“What is?”

“Us being here in this room, the people that are here… Rose said our parents sealed us in here to protect us. I’m not sure whether I want to believe her, Al.” He sounds as unsure of everything as you felt when you first woke up, thinking you were in a hospital bed. You make yourself more comfortable on the cryo-pod padding before you continue, telling James about most of what you remember from the days before you were sealed in.

“Do you remember anything else?” he asks.

“Just bits and pieces here and there. What I told you is mostly what I've made sense of so far.” You pass your hand across your brow exhaustedly. While you’ve never really spoken to your brother about the things that have troubled you in the past, you feel that now is the time for change. The world around you has become a place full of change and void of any real comfort and it only feels natural to break with even more traditions linking you to a past that’s too far out of reach.

“I’m worried, James.” You pause, but instead of asking you what’s wrong, James stays quiet and waits for you to continue. You smile despite yourself, something of the old times will probably always be there when it comes to the two of you.

“I’m worried about going stir-crazy. There’s something wrong with this room, with all of us and I can’t put my finger on it. Shouldn’t I get better instead of worse?” The fear of what your last sentence might mean makes you exhale shakily after rushing to get it all out. “I’m afraid something’s seriously wrong with Scorpius. He’s different from the others… I know this sounds ridiculous, but I really want Mum and Dad.”

James smiles at you in what you’ll later start to consider as a big-brotherly fashion.

“I know how you feel. This is all like some insane nightmare. I’m still not entirely sure this is real and not just some shared hallucination.”

You shake your head.

“It’s real alright! Although… I saw part of the room has disappeared. Don’t look at me like that James, and no I can’t see you, but I _know_ you well enough to know you are giving me _that_ look. Do me a favour and count the pods and how many people are in the room.”

“Pods?” James asks sounding confused.

“The things that look like sarcophagi, Rose calls them pods, because apparently they are similar to the Muggle cryo-pods in science fiction.”

“Alright.”

It takes longer than it should have and you assume that he’s counting everything more than once just to make sure. You think you know what numbers he’ll come up with and still you are surprised enough to tear away the cloth when he grips your arm tight enough to hurt.

“There are more people than pods, am I right?” you ask. Worried because your eyesight hasn’t improved. Someone is walking towards you, but you can’t even make out who it is. You assume it’s Rose anyway, because it’s like her to come over and scold you for uncovering your eyes.

“Yes, but Al, there’s only seven of us in here and only six pods. I can’t see Lily.”

“What do you mean? Where is she? Isn’t she in the pensieve room, helping Rose again?” You ask, confused, because that wasn’t what you had expected. Your chest tightens with worry as a terrible suspicion begins growing inside of you.

“Who’s helping me do what?” Rose asks when she gets close enough to overhear your conversation. “I think I’ve figured out how to disconnect us from the room, but before I attempt any such thing, I want you to take Scorpius into the pensieve chamber. I don’t want to risk leaving him stuck like this because we rushed into things.”

“Rose,” James says, trying to get her attention. “Where’s my baby sister?”

“She must be around here somewhere, I just saw her a moment ago. Would you help Al take Scorpius into the next room, please? I’m not sure he could manage by himself.”

Just as Rose has spoken, the lights flicker and go out for what feels like an eternity. Everyone’s cries of distress are mostly reassuring to you, because it means nobody can see anything and it’s not just you. When the lights come back on they hiss and hum like they did when you woke up. The first thing you are able to make out as your eyes finally focus on your surroundings properly is that there’s now only one doorway leading off the main room. Everyone has jumped up and you and Scorpius are the only people still on the floor. You meet Rose’s shocked gaze, while everyone else starts talking at once.

_“What was that?” “What’s going on?” “What’s wrong with the lights?”_

Before Rose can reply to anyone you tug her aside, whispering urgently.

“Rose, the entrance to the lab, it’s gone!” You only hope none of the others has noticed this yet or at least understood the implications.

She looks from you to the others and then back to you again.

“You’d better hurry, Al. I’ll try to find out what’s wrong and increase the structural integrity somehow. Hurry!” She says in a rushed whisper.

“Everyone! Calm down!” Teddy’s voice booms through the room; he’d been talking to Hugo before the lights went out but is trying to drown out the constant talking.

You grab James’ arm, forcing him to focus on you and stop asking for Lily. You can’t think about her right now. You only hope she wasn’t in the lab when it vanished.

“Help me lift him up, please,” you say, indicating Scorpius, and for once James doesn’t talk back but just acts as you ask.

He helps you carry Scorpius past the six cryo-pods left in the room – where the other two went you can’t allow yourself to think about right now – to the pensieve chamber.

“It’s alright, you don’t have to come inside with me. I can take it from here. Go find Lily!”

James pats you on the back awkwardly, just once and then disappears, leaving you with the lifeless Scorpius in a room that’s mostly cast in shadows as the only light source now comes from the main chamber. After you’ve gently lowered him to the floor you unstop the phial left for him and pour the liquid into the basin in front of you. Once you are done, you hoist him up again plunging him face-first into the memories. What you don’t expect is to be pulled straight into it alongside him.

~.o.O.0.O.o.~

You feel slightly disoriented as you see a scene similar to the one you saw earlier start to appear around you. You are on the other side now, Scorpius is standing beside you, but he’s not speaking and doesn’t even seem to notice you. The two of you watch as the small blond child in front of you offers his hand to another small boy and gets rejected. You are overwhelmed with disappointment and hurt at the rejection. You can tell it’s a fresh emotion and not like what you felt when you saw this memory through your father’s eyes which was more regret on reflection than anything else. Despite what the small blond boy says to your father in the scenes that follow it’s obvious that the rejection still hurts. You see something nobody ever got to see, which is how forlorn the boy feels sometimes, when he’s unable to convince himself that he doesn’t care.

You watch the boy grow up, you learn about the terror at home and how it makes him crave what he cannot have. School has become an ordeal and when he’s just about ready to break, your father is the one to beat him down. Everything spirals out of control then as the boy – no, young man – leaves the hospital wing, as Death Eaters invade both of his homes and he’s forced to flee into an unknown future.

The next thing you become aware of as the images start to blur is Mr. Malfoy looking at you and Scorpius. You are both sitting in the library, trying to study, but you get distracted by each other fairly quickly. Chatting away amicably until Madame Pince tells you both off and you look guiltily after her as she walks back to her counter. You observe the entire exchange from Mr. Malfoy’s point of view hidden behind the shelves, a benevolent smile brightening his usually sombre face. You are filled with another’s sense of pride at a job well done and realise the pride is directed at Scorpius’ and your friendship.

More memories follow showing your and Scorpius’ friendship as it evolves into first best friends and then into something more and still the scenes are pervaded by the sense of benevolence and pride you noticed in the first memory.

When you realise where and when the next memory takes place your heart begins to ache. It’s just after the term in Hogwarts ended and Scorpius has just broken up with you. You feel as if it just happened and want to run at the Scorpius you now see through Mr. Malfoy’s eyes and beg him for forgiveness. You’ve almost forgotten that Scorpius is there with you, beside you and you are only reminded when he gently intertwines his fingers with yours. Your head whips around and you look at him in surprise.

“How…?” You want to ask him so many things but he interrupts you, beckoning towards his younger self speaking to his father.

“Shh, just look,” he says and squeezes your hand gently.

Scorpius is standing in his father’s study looking more awkward than you would have thought to be within the realm of possibility. 

“Father, I need your advice.”

His father beckons him over and pulls up a chair beside his desk for Scorpius to sit down in.

“About what?”

“It’s about Al.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I was going to ask you when he’d be coming over this summer because your mother has asked whether you wanted to join her in Tuscany for a week and I suggested you stay for two weeks and take him with you. I’m sure he’d enjoy a bit of time away.”

Scorpius looks really unhappy now and can’t seem to find the words to go on.

“Scorpius, what’s wrong? Has something happened between you and Al?”

“We… I… I think I’ve made a big mistake.” Scorpius’ voice is shaking and instead of interrupting him, Mr. Malfoy motions for him to go on.

“You see, Al didn’t want to tell our friends or family. He was alright with you knowing for some reason, but his family didn’t know, nobody at Hogwarts knew either. I wanted for us to tell everyone. Why should we hide? It’s not like we are doing anything wrong. I told him that I was sick of keeping it a secret and that I wanted to go public. When he said he didn’t want to, I waited for this entire school term and still he wouldn’t give an inch. And… today I broke up with him. If he’s ashamed to be with me, we shouldn’t be together at all, right? It was the right decision, wasn’t it?”

Mr. Malfoy takes his time in replying and you know Scorpius well enough to see his thoughts spiral out of control, their effect clearly showing on his face as he becomes more and more upset with every second that passes.

“First of all, nobody should be ashamed to be with you and on top of that you and Al were not doing anything wrong. It’s perfectly natural. Now while it might seem that his reason was shame, I’m not sure I’d go that far. I know his father and how much he abhors any media attention, maybe Albus merely wanted to keep the media from finding out. Because, Scorpius, the _Prophet_ would have a field day if they knew…”

Scorpius’ face is now a mask of anguish as his father tries to gently advise him on what to do. Your heart aches in compassion and you wish you could undo what you did to never have caused such pain. The Scorpius beside you wraps his arms around you from behind, he’s slightly taller than you and for the first time since you woke up you actually feel protected. He kisses the back of your head and holds you close.

You are aware of how far Scorpius’ father has come, when he advises your boyfriend to wait and then get in touch with you again once you’ve both had some time to think about everything. He talks of reconciliation and not of revenge like you expected him to.

The memory fades and you can tell that it’s the last one, because Mr. Malfoy is standing in front of the same mirror your father did. Mr. Malfoy clears his throat and begins to speak. Despite the serenity Scorpius displayed earlier you can feel him tense behind you.

“Scorpius, if you see this, our plan will have worked.” Mr. Malfoy sounds as exhausted as you feel and there are dark shadows under his eyes. He runs his hand through his hair in a manner akin to your father and you begin to wonder where he might have picked it up.

“You will know by now, that we’ve not managed to overcome the pandemic that has threatened wizarding kind. We are faced with extinction and only one more thing remained for us to do. To save our children. We sealed you into this chamber so you might survive, so you would outlast the infection, unlike us. I know it’s only a question of time before it’s my turn. You know that I’m a marked man, marked in too many ways, but mostly by a youth wasted on foolish beliefs. Those beliefs are costing me dearly.

“So many have fallen, we are barely able to hold the positions we’ve managed to keep thus far. I’ve seen too many people die, friends and enemies alike. Some days nothing seems to matter anymore, but then I think of you and everything makes sense again. You’ve come so far, Scorpius. You’ve been a wonderful son, you have grown into a wonderful young man and anyone would be happy to have you. I’m so proud of you and who you’ve become. I couldn’t have asked for a better son.

"If I’ve learned one thing over the years, it’s that misplaced pride will get you nowhere. My entire life would have been different if I’d managed to make my own decisions and not let myself be guided by what other people thought or ought to think. I wish I could have been that brave. It’s never too late to change your mind and it’s never too late to say you were wrong and ask for forgiveness. I know last time we spoke properly I told you to wait and be patient and while I’m not saying you were wrong, we now live in circumstances where time is precious. Don’t wait too long and don’t waste time. Follow your heart, Scorpius, it will lead you to happiness and when you wake up it will be something hard to come by.

"You are stronger than me and you are strong enough to overcome anything. I know I’ve not said this often enough, but I’m truly proud of you and the person you have become. I will always love you, no matter what you do. You are my son and that will always mean something to me. Stay safe!”

The image of Mr. Malfoy reciting what must have mostly been a rehearsed speech slowly fades, depositing Scorpius and yourself back in the pensieve room. Your heart is hammering away in your chest. Did Scorpius really wake or was that just wishful thinking on your part? Beside you he slowly blinks holding onto the tabletop before turning to you.

“Al? Are we really… did this really just…?”

You throw yourself at him, not caring that you are bearing him to the ground. He’s back, he’s really back and you are hardly able to believe your luck.

“What are you…? Al… what’s going…?” He attempts to speak, but you silence him with fierce possessive kisses. He feebly tries to resist at first but his sounds of protest quickly turn into sounds of pleasure as you both reacquaint yourselves with each other’s bodies.

When oxygen is starting to become an issue you break the kiss, clinging to Scorpius with your remaining energy. The next kiss is slow and sensual and full of emotions that you both can’t seem to put into words. When that, too, draws to its natural close you both look at each other and smile.

“Hello!”

“Hello to you, too.”

“I take it you missed me?”

“Always!”

Scorpius presses you tightly to his chest. Your hearts beat as one and a sense of pure happiness begins to block out all other emotions and you finally understand why he wanted to tell everyone, because right now you feel like shouting it to the world, loud enough to make seas boil and mountains tumble. You feel a tremble going through Scorpius and it takes you a moment to realise that it’s the ground and not Scorpius that’s trembling. You get up and pull Scorpius with you. He's holding on to you for support. This is the first time in years that he’s stood on his own two feet. 

You hold out your hand and he takes it, intertwining your fingers and kissing you once more before you both make your way back into the main chamber.

~.o.O.0.O.o.~

The room is even darker than it was when you went into the pensieve chamber. What was only a slight tremble on the floor is more pronounced in the main room and you have to concentrate to stay on your feet. The pod right in front of you gets translucent and then disappears when a hand shoots out and grabs you to drag both yourself and Scorpius further into the room.

The moment that hand touches you Scorpius goes, there’s no other word for it, batshit insane. He lunges for the person, who’s still attached to you by their tight grip on your forearm. It is Victorie who is sent tumbling over the nearest pod. 

“Keep your filthy hands off him!” he snarls.

The room has stopped shaking and with the disappearance of the sound of grinding stone the shocked silence reverberates twice as strong. You stretch your hand out to him, not sure whether you dare to actually touch him, Rose’s worries at the forefront of your mind. What if…?

“Scorpius?” you ask, sounding as unsure of yourself as you currently feel. He shouldn’t have been as strong as he was just a moment ago. He turns to you as if in a trance and takes a step closer.

“Al? What’s going on?” That look of rage he displayed only a moment ago is replaced by confusion. You step up to him and hold him close despite your fear and he clings to you like a small child that just woke from a nightmare. Over his shoulder you can see the others helping Victoire to get up. He grumbles against your chest the closer they take her.

“Rose, could you just keep her over at the side please?” you ask. She nods.

Scorpius disentangles himself from you, but stays close enough to touch and points behind himself.

“Al, where’s the doorway we just came through?”

You turn around slowly. If the doorway is really gone that can’t mean anything good, it would mean that the room was shrinking even faster and that Rose hadn’t been able to stop it. As you stare at the spot that had very recently been occupied by a doorway leading into the next room, Rose appears beside you.

“Al, I’ve some bad news. After you went into the pensieve chamber I let the device run all our samples again. When the room began shaking, it fell off the worktop and broke as it hit the floor. I can still call up the results, but I’m unable to tell which result belongs to whom and…” She pauses to take a breath and lean in closer. When she continues it’s not above a whisper.

“…someone in this room is definitely infected.”

Scorpius leans into you, docile as a kitten, holding on to your waist. Your skin crawls at the implications of what Rose just told you. One of you is infected, it could be anyone and it’s only a matter of time before they will turn on you. There’s nowhere to hide now that both antechambers have vanished and when you think it can’t get any worse, the floor starts shaking again, the lights flicker and then go out entirely and the last thing you notice before darkness takes you is a sharp pain at the back of your neck.

~Fin~

**Author's Note:**

> Albus, Scorpius, Lily, Rose, Hugo, Victoire, Teddy and James wake up in a dark room that turns out to be a sort of magical cryo chamber. They were put there by their parents who at this point in time are all dead. Scorpius seems to be in a coma, suggesting he might be infected. The chambers didn't work as they should, because too many people were in the room and the magic ran out.  
> The virus that went around was essentially Voldemorts revenge. It started with the remaining Death Eaters getting sick and infecting the people around them. When Harry, Ron, Hermione and everyone else realised they couldn't win, they decided to make their children sleep and outwait the pandemic. Unfortunately there wasn't enough elixir to save everyone so the adults sacrificed themselves for the children.  
> Since they awoke too early they try to find a way out of the chamber, they find a lab and begin testing everyone for the virus.  
> They've all lost their memories and manage to recover them via several phials left in an antechamber by their parents. The chamber keeps degrading and shrinking.  
> After watching memories of past events together with Al, Scorpius wakes up and is completely fine. They were a couple but had broken up shortly before going into the chamber.  
> The room is about to collapse, when the lights go out and it becomes apparent that someone in the room is infected.


End file.
